Zachary Cherny Interviews Yeasayer

Here is the interview. Typed version below


Where do you guys seek inspiration from for your music?
CK: The weather. I think I don’t know. I think we wrote a lot of songs about weather on the last record. And news stories
How would you guys describe your style of music?
AD: Oh God, Eclectic. [Laughs]
IT: Oh what did I read today, gloriously?
AD: Singer-songwriter [Laughs]

What does the title of your album “All Hour Cymbal” mean?

CK: I think it had multiple meanings. I think it was a cheeky play on words. One is that it was an idea that it is a cymbal store that is open all the time. The other one was like symbols like s-y-m-b-o-l-s. I think it was kind of a funny title if you could interject a little humor.

On your website, if you click on the letters of the word Yeasayer it sends you to a bunch of weird YouTube links.

AD: I didn’t know that. Someone just told me that.
IT: I’ve never been to our website.

It’s just all these weird YouTube videos and one is about how lizard people secretly rule the Earth.

CK: That videos actually not to funny to the guy who used to run our label and he was our manager. He really believes that.
[Everyone laughs]
CK: He actually believes that there are lizard people in the upper echelons of the government who are half man half lizard. And in 10,000 B.C. there was a lizard culture.
AD: Let us tell you that we do not believe that.

So you guys don’t endorse the lizard government operations?

CK: No. But, sure, sure whatever you want.
AD: It’s much simpler than that.

You guys played in Madison at the Terrace. How did you like it there?

AD: It was great man. We played like this free show at the college right on the lake. It seemed kind of like shitty and in a downtown street fair. And people were wasted. And I think a lot of people just went who had never heard of us. A lot of people came up to us and where like, “What the name of your band? How do you spell that?”
CK: Those kids were getting rowdy man.
AD: They crashed the stage at the end.
CK: They danced on the stage for the last song. And it was nuts. That’s our ideal show, just wilding out and having fun. A lot of the time the crowd can be really stiff. But Madison got down.

I saw a YouTube recording on a blog of a leaked track from your upcoming album called “The War around You with Peace inside (Hunters Invasion)”; do you guys know anything about that?

CK: No
IT: I have no idea what you are talking about.
CK: I actually don’t know what you are talking about, for real. What are you talking about?

I don’t know. I was clicking around on your website and I got to some guys YouTube page and it said something like, new leaked Yeasayer song.

CK: Oh!
AD: That’s actually a fake.

That’s a fake?

All: That’s a fake.
AD: If you listen closely it’s actually a combination of like Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, and a track from our first album playing on like 4 stereos.

So I guess ill inform people about how that is not an upcoming track from your new album.

CK: Maybe we should use that name though.

So then I guess my next question about your album being three CDs each representing a different form of water isn’t true also.

CK: That sound like a good idea, but yeah.
IT: What are different types of water?

I don’t know. Water, ice, and vapor it said.

CK: Some crazy son of a bitch out there is making shit up about us.

I guess ill post something on that video saying that you guys said it wasn’t real.

CK: Well I guess if their just having fun. Only if they are having fun.

Well is it safe that if I read you guys record your new album in Woodstock that that is a true statement?

All: That is true.
AD: That was phase one of our recording. But phase two really.

What was it like recording in such a historic place of music?

AD: We really didn’t have much to do much with the history of the music at that place where we were recording. We were just in a house with a lot of mics set up and our computers. We weren’t like gaming with Crosby, Stills, and Nash or anything.

But did you guys want to record in Woodstock or was that not the whole point?

AD: No. We wanted to be in a place that was close enough to New York were we could easily get home on the weekends. And also so it was far enough away we wouldn’t be able to go there every day and come back home. So we’d go at weeks at a time.

You guys live in Brooklyn right?

AD: Yeah. So we could have had a place in Long Island. It just happened that we found a place that was just equipped with a lot of music stuff [in Woodstock].
CK: I just wanted some place that was two hours from Brooklyn. And it could have been south. It just happened that there were a lot of places to rent in Woodstock during the winter. And the place that we found was a musician’s house so I’m glad he let us use all of his stuff.

How did you guys get approached to work on the “Dark Was the Night” compilation?
[Not during the interview I accidently said “complication” instead of “compilation”]

AD: Complication. I like that. That’s a good one. The compilation complication.
IT: We met those guys tour.
CK: Yeah, the National. They are our friends. They just put it together and they just asked us. And it seemed like a really good thing and good cause.
IT: We opened for them, right?
AD: Yeah
CK: We’ve played with them before. They are Brooklyn guys. New York guys. So, I don’t know. It seemed like a good thing and there was a lot of good music on there.

It’s actually one of my favorite albums right now?

AD: Cool.
CK: It seemed like it was pretty popular.

One of my favorite websites is La Blogotheque; Take Away Shows, and you guys preformed on there. How would you describe your experience recording live in different spots in France?

CK: Kind of hectic. Kind of chaotic. It’s pretty much captured in that video very well.

In the video you guys had to climb up a big flight of spiraling stairs.

CK: Yeah I don’t know if there is anything different that wouldn’t be evident in that video. I just think that Vincent and that whole video series that they were doing was great. It was just really well done.
AD: I think the thing that I like the most about the video and in particular Blogotheque is that it’s not just camera rolling, click, play that song. It just really well integrated into this odyssey from a club to some apartment. And we are all kind of bitching the whole time. Well I was at least. And they managed to make us look kind of good. It was just this happening you know. It’s not like we did thirty takes or anything. It was just like, here we go, and here are some song lyrics. That’s all. Just sing along.
CK: Yeah, it was just kind of real.
AD: That’s something that we had always really wanted to get into.
CK: And we really didn’t want to do it because we were tired. I knew Vincent’s stuff and I liked it but,
AD: We had just played a show and our voices were shot. All these frogs were just chain smoking.
IT: [Laughs]

And I noticed in the video that you guys are using spoons and beer bottles and other miscellaneous objects to add symphony to your music. Do you do this often in your recordings or live shows are that what you just had lying around so you just used it?

CK: No.
AD: For us we just didn’t want to be doing some A Capella thing. We just wanted to sing without our traditional instruments and also just be banging on shit.
CK: Yeah, that was just what was there so you got to make a back beat somehow.

In your music there is a lot of harmonic definition in your recordings. Why do you practice that so much in your recordings?

AD: Like vocal harmonies and stuff. [Jokingly] For our first album we were trying to establish ourselves as one of the world’s premier vocal groups.
CK and AD: [Laughs]
IT: Good answer.
CK: [Laughs]
IT: Good answer.
AD: And you know we just play to our strengths. And we can all sing in harmony and shit so I’ve always liked that. Even now, even though we always sing three part harmonies, when I’m listening to someone singing a three part harmony I still don’t hear three parts I just hear one thing. It’s just like a wash.
CK: It just sounds good. That’s why so many bands are doing it.

What’s the meaning behind your song “2080”?

AD: Isn’t it obvious [Jokingly].
CK: Yeah. Whatever you want it to be man. I mean I don’t know. Its whatever.

Just whatever?
CK: I think that up for interpretation.
AD: You will learn that in twenty years when we release our DVD retrospective and book.


I’ll make sure to Amazon request that.

AD: I’ve wondered if anyone really ever tells the truth about a song. You know, you have your little stories but why give up that one thing that’s deep down inside of you.

You don’t want to give away a secret.

AD: Let people interoperate it. You don’t want people to know exactly how fucked up you are.

Is there anything that you guys usually enjoy writing about?

CK: The weather.
AD: [Laughs]

Well you guys had a great show today. Right as you guys were finishing a song the rain seemed to end?
IT: It was a nice kind of rain.

And now my final question is a tongue twister. If Yeasayer met a naysayer of Yeasayer, how would Yeasayer turn the naysayer of Yeasayer into a yea-sayer of Yeasayer?

[Jokingly]

AD: We don’t care.
CK: Kick him in the balls.
IT: Just kick him in the balls.

Just kick him in the balls?

[Jokingly]

IT: I’d just drop him. I’d just slit his fucking throat.
AD: Good tongue twister though.

Thank you.

AD: I totally got it.